conlangfandomcom-20200223-history
Dtar
Dtar is a fusionally synthetic language spoken by the Northern Aliandr Centaurs. Setting Dtar is derived from the extinct language Dmara, which was first seen spoken in the northeast by the Northern Boln Centaurs. Dmara was a very inconvenient language, not easily spoken — or learned — so scholars watered it down to a slightly less complicated and intricate dialect, now known as Dtar. Phonology The Dtarian words comprise of the following letters: A, ð, þ, ë, ä, s, t, i, o, c, r, d, y, k, sh, e, n, p, m, l, u, w, æ, h Consonants : Vowels : Please note that even though ë and ä are included as part of the Dtarian alphabet, they are not placed on the chart. This is so because vowels with accents are not considered separate vowels. These two vowels are simply most commonly seen with the umlauts, which is why they are included in the alphabet. Diphthongs Triphthongs Phonotactics in progress Basic Grammar Word Order Dtar is an Object-Verb-Subject language, where the object takes on the accusative case, the verb conjugates as needed, and the subject takes on the nominative. Adjectives always come before the noun they modify, but adverbs follow their governing verbs. Pronouns Dtarian pronouns are almost never used, unless there is a great need for them, such as in the scenario when it is unclear who the subject is. However, they are treated as regular nouns when it comes to the accusative case. They have slightly irregular genitive cases, though. Nominative Case : *Note: "ði" signifies inclusive clustivity, where the speaker (you) is talking about him/herself and the person s/he is talking to. ''"ðei" signifies exclusive clustivity, where you are talking about yourself and someone else not the person you are talking to. '' **Note: "þa" can either mean "this" or "that", and it is up to the listener/reader to determine what is being referenced. If it is unclear, it is always safer to use a noun in its place. Similarly, "ða" means either "these" or "those". Genitive Case : *Une is used for both inclusive and exclusive "we". '' Accusative Case : ''*Unlike the genitive case, inclusive and exclusive "we" is specified, and the correct accusative forms must be used. Personal Pronouns : Nouns Nouns are used to describe objects, beings, places, events, etc. While Dtarian nouns do not have a gender, they do have four declensions. Nouns are declined according to their ending letter. There are three noun cases: the nominative, genitive, and accusative. These three cases must be respected in both the singular and plural tenses and cannot be omitted in any situation, because their omission destroys the original meaning of the sentence, leading to an undesired (and possible insulting) meaning. 1st Declension: -a, -o, -u (ð) Nouns in the first declension end in the letters "a", "o", or "u". The domain, in parentheses, is "ð". Let's look at the example "noma", which means "water" in Dtarian. The root of this words is "nom-". : Dissecting the above example, we see: Noma is in the nominative case, meaning, "water" as a subject of a sentence. Nomð '''is in the genitive case, and means "water's", or "of water", or "from water". '''Nomðs '''is in the accusative case, and denotes "water" as an object of either a verb or a preposition. ''Please note that these are not the only noun cases in Dtar. These are only the basic cases; there are several more, which I will introduce after we have gone through the first four declensions. '' 2nd Declension: -e, -i, -æ (þ) Nouns belonging to the second declension end in the letters "e", "i" or "æ". The domain is þ. I will use the example "hejre", meaning "table". The root of the word is "hejr-". : Dissecting the above example, we see: '''Hejre is in the nominative case, and means "table" as a subject. Hejrþ '''is in the genitive case, and means "table's", "of the table", "from the table", or "belonging to the table". '''Hejrþeya '''is in the accusative case, and denotes "table" being the object of either a verb or a preposition. 3rd Declension: -l, -m, -p, -s (ë) Nouns in the third declension end in the letters "l", "m", "p", or "s". The domain is ë. I will use the word "sätos", meaning "hunger" in Dtarian, as an example. The root is "säto-". : Dissecting the above example, we see: '''Sätos '''is in the nominative case, meaning "hunger" as a subject. '''Sätoëwa '''is in the genitive case, meaning "of hunger", "because of hunger", "from hunger", etc. '''Sätoëa '''is in the accusative case, and means "hunger" when it is used as an object of a verb or a preposition. 4th Declension: all other letters (ä) Nouns in the fourth and last declension end in the remaining letters. The domain is ä. I will use the word "siten", which means "eye" in Dtarian, as an example. "Site-" is the root of the word. : Dissecting the above example, we see: '''Siten '''is in the nominative case, and means "eye" as a subject. '''Siteäway '''is in the genitive case and means "eye's" or "from the eye". '''Siteäwa is in the accusative case and means "eye" when it is the object of a verb or a preposition. Complex Declensions Now we are headed into the complex declensions. As stated before, the nominative, genitive, and accusative cases are only the basic declensions. In this section we will be going over the complex declensions, i.e. the adessive, apudessive, inessive, intrative, locative, subessive, superessive, ablative, elative, allative, perlative, prosecutive, and antessive cases. To make things easier, we will split them into two groups, Group I and Group II. There is only one declension for the complex declensions, called "Declension V" instead of "the fifth declension". I will decline the four previously used nouns with the given cases, and more discussion will resume later. Noma : *These are three examples of when a triphthong is seen with an accented letter in the center. **This is irregular. There is no quick tip on how to know when it will be irregular. You must just memorize the few irregular ones like those. ***Since it does not make sense to say "before the water" or "before the waters", while it would make sense to say "before the concert" or "before the concerts", the antessive case - singular and plural - is ommitted from the example. Hejre : *These are two examples of when a triphthong is seen with an accented letter in the center. However, a "y" can be placed between the first and second letters of the triphthong, making it actuallt a diphthong and destroying the special triphthong. Sätos : Key The following is key, which can be referred to for easy translation purposes. If you have not caught the secrets to all noun declensions by looking at the tables above, don't worry; you have them right below, in the simplest explainable way. *The intrative case singular signifies there are two objects specified, where the intrative plural case signifies there are three or more objects. **The "y" can be inserted if the noun ends in an "o". This is not mandatory, but cannot be used after vowels ending in a consonant. Adjectives Adjectives are used to describe characteristics of nouns. Adjectives, along with verbs, are the only parts of speech in Dtar which morph according to gender. There are two main genders for Dtarian: lifelike and animalistic. The lifelike gender is split into three separate sub-genders: masculine (used for describing male persons), feminine (used for describing female persons), and neuter (used for describing anything else that lives, i.e. plants, trees, etc.) The animalistic gender is a misnomer as it is used to describe un-animated, or "dead" objects, or objects which don't live. However, adjectives do not take on a plural form, as the plural will be obvious through the noun. I will use the adjective stor, meaning "big", for an example. : The masculine form is the root form of the adjective. The feminine is formed by placing an "i" before the first vowel of the adjective and then placing a forward accent on that original vowel. The neuter is formed by placing an "e" between the first two consonants of an adjective. If there is already an "e" present, put an accent above the original "e". The animalistic gender is formed by placing an "i" between the first two consonants of an adjective. Degrees There are three degrees for adjectives in Dtarian: the positive, comparative, and absolute superlative. The positive degree is the lowest and most basic degree. It is the adjective itself. The comparative degree denotes an adjactive more well-defined than the positive degree; i.e. "bigger" versus "big". The absoluate superlative degree is even more well-defined than the comparative; i.e. "biggest" versus "bigger" and "big". There is no gender attributed to adjectival degrees. Again, I will use the adjective stor, meaning "big" in Dtarian, as an example. : The positive degree is, as mentioned above, the adjective itself. The comparative degree is formed by adding "-ior" as a suffix to the adjective, and the absolute superlative is formed by adding "-iet" as a suffix. Adverbs Adverbs modify verbs. In English, they usually end in "-ly". In Dtarian, adverbs are modified by a "í" placed before the adjective. Let's take, for instance, the adjective for "fast", "stum": Verbs Verbs are the part of speech that conveys action or a state of being. Dtarian verbs are conjugated, have tenses, moods, etc. Personal pronouns are usually not used in front of or after their mother verbs, as the conjugations themselves are sufficient to provide the reader/listener enough information as to determine who (or what!) is speaking. As another note, Dtarian verbs are the only other part of speech (the other being adjectives) which have three gender forms in the 3rd person singular conjugations of the verb. There are three main verb tenses: the present, past, and future. Every other tense or mood is usually derived from the given three. In the following let's examine three verbs, and then let's take a look at the "key" that shows us actually how to apply the conjugations: khav - to eat : saran- to sleep : ras- to run, to gallop, to race : *This is a slight irregularity. Because the conjugation would end up being ras - and therefore no different than the original mother verb - the conjugation is changed slightly to its present form. Before we continue further on with verbs, I would like to digress to a separate section for a few paragraphs: Clauses A clause is an expression including a subject and predicate but not constituting a complete sentence. In order to express clauses in Dtar, an independent prefix, ux, must be used before the clause and the conjunction is found directly after. For example: I run and I |} Dictionary Example text Category:Languages